I personally like the idea of junking the divisions and trying to have everybody play everybody as equally and frequently as they can. As the Big Ten folks kept saying in the rollout, teams in the same conference should want to play each other. The teams in the middle hate geographical divisions because you just drew a line right through the middle of conference where teams on the other side of the line barely play each other. Now you want set it up that they don't play at all. No way. No thank you.
I agree with this particularly the
bolded part.
An example from Ohio State:
The Buckeyes first played the USC Trojans in 1937. From then through 2017 Ohio State and USC played 24 times (USC holds a 13-10-1 advantage). Granted, eight of those were in bowl games (7 Rose 4-3 USC and 1 Cotton (1-0 tOSU) but they have played 16 times on campus. Those 16 consist of:
- H&H in 1937/38, 2-0 USC
- H&H in 1941/42, 2-0 tOSU
- H&Hx2 in 1946-1949, 2-1-1 tOSU
- H&H in 1959/60 (My dad was a Marine stationed at Twentynine Palms California and a Buckeye fan and attended the 1959 game in SoCal), 1-1
- H&H in 1963/4, 1-1
- H&H in 1989/90, 2-0 USC
- H&H in 2008/9, 2-0 USC
So Ohio State and USC aren't really "rivals" per se, but they have played somewhat regularly since before the
Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor.
Ohio State hasn't played UCLA quite as frequently but the Buckeyes have played the Bruins nine times including one RoseBowl (1-0 UCLA) and eight games on campus (4-3-1 tOSU) consisting of:
- H&H in 1961/2, 1-1
- H&H in 1975/6, 1-0-1 tOSU
- H&H in 1979/80, 1-1
- H&H in 1999/2001, 1-1
IMHO, it would be ridiculous and silly if USC and UCLA joining our league meant that Ohio State would actually play them LESS often.
This is why I think we HAVE to go to pods. If we stay at 16 I *THINK* a division-less structure with no pods would make sense. With 16 teams each one could have:
- Three permanent rivals, and
- Play the other 12 teams every other year
However, once you go to 20 even a 10 game schedule doesn't really fix things. There would be 10 teams in your division so with permanent divisions and 10 games you would still only have one cross-over per year. It would take 10 years to play each of them and 20 years to complete a H&H with all 10. That, IMHO, is way too infrequent.
Thus, I think with 20 teams the obvious solution is pods of five where your annual schedule is:
- The other four teams in your pod, and
- All five teams in one of the other three pods on a rotating basis.
In this way each team would play each other team every three years and complete a H&H with the 15 teams not in their pod every six years.
Consider
@847badgerfan a Wisconsin fan who lives in Florida. If Miami and FSU were added then even with his Badgers likely not in a pod with the Hurricanes or Seminoles, his Badgers would still play in his adopted state once every three years. Similarly,
@betarhoalphadelta 's Boilermakers would play in Los Angeles once every three years.
